Christopher Hitchens wastes no ammo going after the feckless, cufflink and Kir Royale UN / anti-war crowd—the transantional progressivists’ last great hope for a world ruled by tailored bureaucrats who, on their way to cocktail parties, pause to initial documents everyone knows, deep down, will be ignored or finessed or massaged or excused by the really bad actors of the world—but that can be used to henpeck and worry and demonize all of those (few remaining) countries that pose no real aggressive threat to world order. From “My Ideal War: How the international community should have responded to Bush’s September 2002 U.N. speech,” Slate:
[…] It seems amazing to me that so many people have adopted the “Saddam Hussein? No problem!” view before the documents captured from his regime have even been translated, let alone analyzed. I am sure that when this task has been completed, history will make fools of those who believed that he was no threat, had no terror connections, was “in his box,” and so forth. A couple of recent disclosures lend some point to my view. The first are the findings published in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, and the second is the steady work of Stephen Hayes, over at the Weekly Standard, aimed at getting some of the captured documents declassified.
The long report in the May-June Foreign Affairs gives us a view of the regime that confirms the essential contours of Kanan Makiya’s Republic of Fear. A system of hideous cruelty we have learned to take for granted, but this also reminds us of a system of amazing irrationality. Saddam Hussein wanted, until the very last days, to maintain ambiguity about his possession of weapons of mass destruction. Given his past record, there was absolutely no reason why any serious government should have taken his word that he had dropped this stance. (And we also know, from the Duelfer report and many other sources, that he hoped to retain his latent ability to restart production once the sanctionsâ€â€which were themselves a crime against the Iraqi peopleâ€â€had been lifted or rendered ineffective.) It is in the light of that last point that one of the article’s crucial discoveries must be read. Saddam believed until the end that the French and Russian governments would save him. He also knew what weâ€â€at the timeâ€â€did not: The oil-for-food system had turned into a self-sustaining racket that cemented his support in French and Russian circles. He thought that contracts would speak louder than words, and in this instance he wasn’t completely crazy to do so.
As for the “terror” connection, Hayes in a series of unrebutted articles has laid out a tranche of suggestive and incriminating connections, based on a mere fraction of the declassified documents, showing Iraqi Baathist involvement with jihadist and Bin Ladenist groups from Sudan to Afghanistan to Western Asia. If you choose to doubt this, you might want to look at the threat, neglected by the U.S. military, of the “Fedayeen Saddam.” (See also Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor’s admirable new book Cobra II.) This interestingly named outfit, known to many of us for some time, did most of the serious fighting against the coalition after the ignominious and predictable collapse of the Iraqi army and the Republican Guard. Its ranks were heavily augmented with foreign jihadists, and from this para-state formation and its recruitment pattern, we get an idea of the way in which things would have gone in Iraq if it had been left alone. Never mind “imminent threat,” if that phrase upsets you. How does “permanent threat” sound?
So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush’s speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam’s deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here’s what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantimeâ€â€this is of special importanceâ€â€all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.
Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations’ secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeusâ€â€the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorateâ€â€to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.
[My emphases; Hitchens’ emphatic language]
I have argued on a number of occasions now that the way the international and domestic medias—along with our own ingrained progressives and anti-war types here at home who provide the “context” to the already carefully laid out narratives being peddled by the press, have had (and continue to have) an effect on the way the war is being waged—playing right into the hands of our enemies by trying to break down the will of those who not only believed in the necessity of the Iraq campaign (which has to do with national interest), but also with its wisdom and righteousness.
For acknowledging this—in addition to noting my criticisms of the actual campaign (which, like any war, is fluid, though despite pockets of trouble it appears that we have been able to reach every political milestone thus far)—I have been party to the very “sneers” Hitchens notes, often from people who claim that li’l old liberal dissent can’t have any effect on the war (this is the part of the argument where we’re told that al-Qaeda doesn’t read our papers or follow our press, which of course doesn’t speak highly of them as an enemy—but hey, what do you expect from dumb brown people?), but that any use of propaganda by the US military—even if what is contained in the planted stories is largely true—is unethical, and suggests that the terrorists are already winning (by forcing us to use such terrible tactics). Presumably, the worry being that propaganda actually does work—but only when it comes from the US right.
These same sneering people also quote poll number after poll number citing the American people’s disillusion with Iraq—but the reason for this disillusion is a product not of the relentless negativity and sensationalism of the press, whose ideological leanings and belief in their mandate to “shape” the story has no effect whatsoever on what they write or how they write it. Instead, Bush’s slipping poll numbers on Iraq are a testament to the ignorant rubes who elected Bush twice finally coming to their senses and learning to tease out the facts from the rightwing-dominated disinformation machine
But we all know that’s bullshit—hell, even those peddling it with a straight face day in and day out know it to be an airbrushing of history and gross case of projection—so it makes sense, as Hitchens has done, to refocus his efforts on “keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.”
In the short term, the liberal Dems and the transnationalists (who just recently congratulated themselves for making unsubstantial cosmetic changes to the UN Human Rights Commission, then retired to tumblers of Scotch and some Sudanese hookers) may win some victories.
But that doesn’t mean we can afford to give up the fight. History, ultimately, will prove those of us who supported the strategy of the Iraq campaign as part of a larger war on Islamic terror correct in our principles—and this regardless of the outcome. It will show that kicking the can along until it was too late—while certainly the easy and feel-good diplomatic way to handle a boiling cauldron of hatred toward the west in the Arab and Muslim world (close your eyes, pretend “stability” is working, even if it means surrendering the old liberal principles of noted neo-con JFK and joining up with Pat Buchanan, International ANSWER, etc)—so that you can concentrate on smoking bans and universal healthcare, is the way of those too paralyzed by political considerations to do anything other than protect themselves for upcoming elections.
It is power as an end in itself, even if wielding it leaves you, ironically, too frightened to wield it.
As Hitchens reminds us, we could have been living in a different world. But backdoor deals and Security Council perfidy—coupled with a strong and organized campaign to discredit the US and limit both its power and its mideast reform agenda—have left us where we are today.
I still believe victory in Iraq is assured, so long as we stay the course. Bush—not having to worry about being reelected, seems prepared to do that. But this could have been easier; and it should have been.
And those who have made it more difficult while wearing the mantle of loyal dissenters—even when their “loyal dissent” consists of accusing a wartime President of lies, bad faith, incompetence, immorality, illegal activities (and fighting for the civil rights of suspected terrorists, be it in the calls to close Gitmo, or the desire to shut down military intel operations like the NSA program without even having been briefed on the details, and despite the program being upheld [update:in essence protected by the FISA review court when they acknowledged that the President has always been thought to have inherent authority to use the NSA during war in this way; me, I see it as a rebuke to those trying to use Congress to usurp Executive CiC powers] by the FISA appeals court)—though they are now trying to walk back their own influence and ironize the damage they’ve done to their own country’s efforts to wage an effective war (part of which relies upon waging an effective PR strategy, something they’ve problematized nearly from the outset), will sooner or later have to face up to the fact that what they’ve been saying has had actual consequences.
Of course, their defensiveness will have them howling about their own bravery. But it seems to me that, as the polls these folks are so eager to cite now show, the real dissenters are on the pro-war side.
WE’RE REBELS, BABY! AND IT FEELS SO GOOD I MAY JUST HAVE TO GO OUT AND BANG ME A GIRL IN A FLOWERED SUNDRESS!
(h/t Allah)
Wait! I’ll get my hat.
tw; I like the idea.
Let me find my Cialis and I’ll be right with you.
Ok. I’m in, but they better be shaven.
Jeff misleads:
Jeff, you know this isn’t true. The FISA appeals court has only issued one published ruling, the In re Sealed Case, which addressed the constitutionality of FISA, not “the program.” In fact, the chief FISA judge refused to halt the program precisely because she felt that the court lacked the jurisdiction to rule on the program’s legality one way or another. How that amounts to the program being “upheld” by the FISA appeals court is beyond me.
So, after all the bandwidth you’ve spent on this issue, for you to state an absolute falsehood like what’s quoted above, is a result of either serious rhetorical laziness on your part or outright dishonesty.
I only know what I read in NRO (having given up reading newspapers dead tree or otherwise) but as I recall from a recent article on the NSA, the IN Re Sealed Case ruling did not directly uphold the program but was rather a smackdown of the FISA court for attempting to in essence run the DOJ with regard to the FISA statute.
But anyway Jeff, watch out or the trolls will flock over here to waste more of your bandwidth.
Sure, the trolls will flock on over. And I say, the more the merrier (subject to our hosts capacity for tolerating B.S.) since they just reinforce all of my preconcieved notions of what it means to be “progressive” and “liberal” circa 2006. The never ending meme recycling, the imperviousness to counter-arguments, the virulent, unthinking hatred of Bush; these things soothe and reassure me that despite the GOP’s many flaws, there is little likelihood that the completely addled Democrat party will be able to take advantage and return to power.
As for the post, Jeff? Bravo. Excellent sum up on the state of our domestic discourse on the topic of the GWOT.
Not that Jeff needs the help, but here’s one way of looking at your over-simplification
One analysis re: FISA Court</a>
Key graf:
Also TalkLeft had a similar take on the decision back when it was rendered. Their supporting links have gone ‘404’ but you can read the original posts there.
.
The best thing going for the Republicans is the perfidity of the Democrats. Now if the Republicans would only stick to their “smaller government” and “decreased spending” talking points and actually walk the talk, then we would REALLY have something.
Historical allusion, in case anyone doesn’t catch it:
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest,” is a quote from the 18th century philosophe Denis Diderot.
You’re welcome.
Over to you, Actus/Phoney/TB/Vino…
I’m reminded of the case of one Jimmy Carter. In many circles, he’s seen as a guy whose heart was in the right place, but whose political skills were so poor that he was unable to get things done, resulting in a series of embarassing setbacks and failures.
So let us assume for the moment that Hitchens is right, and that the world should have responded to Bush’s good idea by doing X, Y, and Z.
May I suggest that the burden of arranging that response falls on Mr. Bush? It’s not like the opposition was a secret, or a surprise. His own father provided an excellent example of coalition-building. Bush I went out there and sold, sold, sold Desert Storm so that when the going got going, he had a broad base of international support.
Bush II didn’t do that. The burden was on his administration to build support for his policies. He didn’t do a good enough job; especially given the obvious fact that any success in Iraq was going to require years of occupation, would involve lots of civilian deaths, and would require us to fight a persistent and stubborn insurgency.
Faced with a hard sell, they blue-skied everybody about the cost in lives and treasure. And now we all see how full of it they all were, and their credibilty with millions of American voters and much of the world is shot.
So once again, we are confronted with the basic problem of this administration: they’re crappy planners. They know how to win elections and play the media game, but they’re terrible at actually enacting policy, whether it’s war or Medicaid or homeland security or Katrina response or anything else. And the reason that they’re terrible at enacting policy is because they don’t listen to people who aren’t on their team already. They just ram their policies down everybody’s throats. And they’re surprised when people don’t want to cooperate to help clean up the mess.
Jimmy Carter … George Bush …. if history is kind to W, he’ll be remembered as a guy with the right ideas about freedom and democracy, but whose autocratic, unilateralist style undercut his best intentions.
Thanks, bud.
Anybody that believes in the best of Saddam will, deservedly, get punished for it. Trvth, it is a bitch.
And dictators so rarely call you back the next day.
Beetroot leaves aside that the Security Council fix was in, that France and Russia had financial incentives to block our efforts and help Saddam, and that Kofi and the UN are in up to their eyeball in graft—all of which made any sell (and those speeches Bush gave to the UN and after 911 were among his very best) impossible.
But you “bracket” all that and posit that had Bush only been more persuasive, the Security Council and Hans Blix, et al, would have sprung into fiersome action.
Instead, I’d argue that it’s amazing he amassed the support he did, given the moral outrage that was being disingenuously marshaled against what was going to be yet again more UN fecklessness and can kicking. At any rate, when it comes to deciding on whose premise to side with, chances are good I’ll take Hitchens over Beetroot most days.
<style undercut his best intentions. </blockquote>
Because War is always a Failure and if only we talked things through, yadda, yadda, yadda…
Same difference. Bush was incompetent in NOT raising a UN Super-Coalition (probably the one thing he did right, btw; keep the UN the hell out of Iraq).
He would have been supercompetent in disarming Saddam with discourse of Classic Greek literature over coke lines on the backs of dead hookers and pony-keg stands, but whatever.
Once again Lord Acton is proven prescient:
“Every villian is followed by a sophist with a sponge.”
Uh, beet old boy, you missed a spot.
Bush 1 had a coalition to kick Saddam out of Kuwait, it fell apart at the notion of going after Bagdad. The problem with your basic premise for me is that no one can explain why it is wrong to do the right thing just because no one else wants to do it.
“I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.”
“WE’RE REBELS, BABY! AND IT FEELS SO GOOD I MAY JUST HAVE TO GO OUT AND BANG ME A GIRL IN FLOWERED SUNDRESS!”
Choices, choices…
LOL, TomB. Good get.
Thanks.
What the BDSers have yet to realize is that with every translated document, and every new revelation about Saddam, they are slowly being drawn into the unenviable position of defending him. And as time goes by, he’ll look a lot less like the crazy uncle you see in court and more like the blood-soaked madman he really is.
Unfortunately they’ll be more than happy to clean up all that blood just to score points against Bush.
What will history say about these people?
Regardless of the out come? Really? What a romantic notion. Fight the good fight, go down fighting, bla, bla, bla. This does however remind me of a quote I saw earlier today:
The Administration is letting Bin Laden dictate how this war is fought, don’t blame us on the Left who didn’t fall for it. While your waiting to be vindicated, for all the coming years, think on this:
A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
Jeff, all I’m saying is that the opposition was perfectly predictable, and that the Prez would’ve been better served by building a stronger coalition both abroad and at home.
Yeah, it’s a tough job. Yeah, he had to contend with the material interests of major powers. Yeah, he had to deal with a UN establishment that had no interest in endorsing an invasion that would kill thousands and cost millions. Yeah, he had to deal with anti-war sentiment at home. But that’s where you’re supposed to lead when you’re president, right? That’s where the hard work comes in, right?
He just didn’t do a very good job of it. And no, taking that position does not force me to defend Saddam. Saddam was a horrible guy. But the world is full of horrible guys, and the President’s obligation to me, a citizen of the US, is to make wise decisions about each one of those horrible guys. And frankly I think that this administration’s decisions about dealing with Saddam have sucked eggs. He’s out of power and now WE torture people instead, right in his prisons and his torture chambers. That’s f***ing great.
But Beetroot, any opposition to the war is support of Saddam! It’s the oldest Strawman in the book.
[ed – If you don’t have anything reasonably intelligent to offer, don’t waste my bandwidth]
Well, bad news.
Greenwald has a book coming out soon based on his blog posting about this very subject. Jeff only has a blog.
And, in reality, books beat blogs the way paper beats rock. So Emperor Chimpy McHitlerburton violated the law in furtherance of his own Power Mad agenda.
It was a game fight, Jeff.
Sure, you wrote tens of thousands of words and included links to your source material, outlined your position, and explained it further in the comments section, but Greenwald has a book coming out.
Sure, you weren’t framing the material to fit a preexisting narrative, but rather considering the issue on its own merits, but Greenwald has a book coming out.
Book announcement
Amanda Marcotte does, too. But that’s neither here nor there.
book announcement
Beetroot,
your assertion about Bush II might be correct if we assume that the entities/people Bush was supposed to persuade were negotiating in good faith. The comparison to Bush I, to me, seems inapt because the situation was different: different nations had differences of opinion, but at the end of the day, everyone wanted Sadaam out of Kuwait.
It seems to me that an objective read of the situation in 2003 is completely different. Unlike his father, Bush II had to try to persuade leaders of other nations, UN members, and a significant chunk of U.S. citizens who were not negotiating in good faith. In other words, nothing Bush would say, no grand display of eloquence or humility, would have persuaded them to come to our side. The reasons for this can only be guessed at, but the largest (as far as other nations are concerned) is a desire to maintain the status quo, both because it benefitted certain countries to do so economically, and because others wanted to limit the power of the U.S. regardless of the outcome.
Would it have been preferrable to have more allies, or even a UN blessing of our actions re Iraq? Yes, assuming that neither would have required a limitation of our strategic goals. But just because we did not achieve that support does not mean Bush was incompetent. It can also mean (and I believe it to be so) that our “allies” had decided not to side with us.
Whether you believe that or not, assume it is true and tell us what you would have done in that situation?
Because of the MONEY, duh. Oh, and because you get to use the word “amok” on a book cover. Really, how often does THAT happen?
They had a The Mamas & The Papas special on PBS last week for pledge. Man, that Michelle Phillips had the PERFECT hippie chick face back then…
Vizsla, while I agree in principle that it’s impossible to build a coalition when the other side is operating in bad faith, I also think it’s a mistake to let this administration off the hook when it comes to predicting and gameplanning for Iraq.
Again, I’m of the opinion that none of the opposition was unpredictable or unknowable. Given the massive resources of our government, it seems logical to me that we could’ve easily figured out where the “bad faith” was going to come from—whether it’s French nuclear industries or corrupt UN officials or whatever—and figured out a way to get around it, or defuse it, or buy it off, or whatever.
Again, that’s the job, and it’s a hard job, but frankly, it SHOULD be hard to get a lot of people to agree to support an invasion that was clearly going to risk thousands of innocent lives, destablize an entire region, and pit the West against Islam at a time when that was exactly what the Islamofascists wanted.
I’m not suggesting that it’s impossible to concieve of a situation where unilateral action was justified. If I was in the situation where I knew I had to knock off some tinpot dictator, and he was paying off the whole world and it was only me who had the guts to stand up to him, I can see how I might conclude that I had to do it anyway.
But if I’m President, then I know that lots of people want to see me fail. So I would sure as hell have my ducks in a row for the occupation and subsequent destabilization.
So (if you really want to know) I would be realistic in my assessment of the prospects of insurgency, I would be forthright with my constituents about the coming demands on American blood and treasure, and, quite frankly, I would look for ways to bring in international partners in the occupation so that a hell of a lot more people had stakes in it than do at this time. If it took appealing to their greed and corruption, I would’ve figured out how to make that work in my interest.
A Kir Royale sounds good right now.
The “transnational progressives” are nothing but 9-to-5 anti-democratic isolationists. But they really throw people off their trail by serving as secular apologists for Mohammedan fanatics.
There’s nothing sure in this world but jihad, jizya, and Jimmuh.
Bush’s slipping poll numbers on Iraq are a testament to the ignorant rubes who elected Bush twice finally coming to their senses and learning to tease out the facts from the rightwing-dominated disinformation machine
It Didn’t Work
February 24, 2006, 2:51 p.m.
http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley.asp
WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.
KEY EXCERPTS:
<objective in Iraq has failed.</b> Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements.
And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.
Is this guy also a moonbat?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701795.html
Conditions in Iraq have worsened in the 94 days that have passed since Iraq’s elections in December. And there still is no Iraqi government that can govern. By many measures conditions are worse than they were a year ago, when they were worse than they had been the year before.
– George F. Will
Three years ago the administration had a theory: Democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable culture, they can also create such a culture. That theory has been a casualty of the war that began three years ago today.
Gee —
Sure do wish I had thought to write on Buckley. Because maybe then I could have drawn some distinctions between his position and that others whose character and opinions are less impressive or important to me.
Oh, wait…
Incidentally, are you the Steve J who posts over at Cole’s place?
ps. Are you suddenly an advocate of Buckley and Will’s? Should I name Democrats who are pro-war. I mean, what is your point?
I still believe victory in Iraq is assured, so long as we stay the course.
Uh huh. I don’t see any reason to trust the numbnuts that got us into this mess to get us out of it.
Incidentally, are you the Steve J who posts over at Cole’s place?
I can’t be sure that I’ve NEVER posted there but I don’t think I have.
Are you suddenly an advocate of Buckley and Will’s?
Nah. Buckley uses too many words I don’t know and Will is a Cubs fan.
Thank you for this, Goldstein. I’m glad I kept reading your rag after the Billy Joel laud.
Keep up the great work.
History, ultimately, will prove those of us who supported the strategy of the Iraq campaign as part of a larger war on Islamic terror correct in our principlesâ€â€and this regardless of the outcome.
Um, the neo-con delusions are NOT principles.
Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice-President
it appears that we have been able to reach every political milestone thus far
Except the very first one:
MR. RUSSERT: So in April of 2003, General Franks was planning to remove all troops from Iraq by September, other than 30,000?
MR. GORDON: On April 16, 2003, General Franks flew to Baghdadâ€â€I was there at the timeâ€â€and he delivered guidance to his commanders to be preparedâ€â€not necessarily to leave, but be, to be prepared to reduce forces down to a division-plus by September, conditions permitting, but it was his assumption and hope that the conditions would allow that.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11711506/page/5/
OK Steve J. Your powers of persuasion have made me see the error of my ways. Now will you fuck off?
Uh, Steve? That’s not a political milestone in Iraq. That is a military / operations milestone that has to do with our end of things.
And the “neo-con” delusions… mind defining them? You can use the language of JFK if it makes things easier for you.
As for whether or not removing a dictator when our national interests and the interests of an oppressed people converge is “principled,” well, it is certainly more principled than “only help out if you’re sure it’ll be easy. And there’s a Dem in charge. And American interests aren’t really involved. Because it makes us look, like, totally selfless—and it’s easy! Just launch air strikes!”
Jeff, I have my own theories what drives people live Steve to take up your web space. What are yours? It can’t be the delusion that they are making converts. It might make for an interesting psychological monograph for a condition that is made possible only by the internet.
whoops. “Live” should be “like”
I have no idea.
Glenn Greenwald and Amanda Marcotte both have book deals. Me? Not so much. I’m beginning to doubt I have much to offer, to tell you the truth.
So in that case Jeff, why haven’t you posted pictures of Milosevic’s vigil?
See, there’s your problem, “Mary.” You’ve confused me with Rick Santorum.
Which is something that regular readers of this site would never do.
If you’re looking for an all-purpose wingnut against which to launch your feeble rhetorical slaps, you might want to look elsewhere.
On the contrary, you have a combination of a different sense of humor and the ability to offer insightful analysis that does not get carried away by the tides of emotion that drive much of popular conventional “wisdom.†I thought that your analysis of the hurricane Katrina response will be vindicated when the supercharged BS is cleared away and the definitive history is written.
If Glenn Reynolds could do it, you can. How about something like “The Rise of Internet Infantilism.â€Â
O.K.
One chapter could be: “The use of quotes as a substitute for reason.â€Â
Another could be: WE’RE REBELS, BABY! AND IT FEELS SO GOOD I MAY JUST HAVE TO GO OUT AND BANG ME A GIRL IN A FLOWERED SUNDRESS!
BTW Fred, what’s our exit strategy for World War 2? We still have troops in Europe and Japan.
You don’t have to tell me, I did my three years in Germany. (Alpha 6/52 ADA)
Sure, Fred, those are all good chapter headings. Have any others?
It just helps to be reminded every once in a while. BTW, what is our exit strategy?
the desire to shut down military intel operations like the NSA program without even having been briefed on the details, and despite the program being upheld
The warrantless tapping of American citizens has not been upheld by any court.
To have an exit strategy in Japan someone would have to address the little issue we have with N. Korea. Sometime. As for Germany…
That’s not a political milestone in Iraq.
Fredo and the other idiots assumed Iraq would be a functioning democracy by September.
The next time someone with the mental prowess of a bumper sticker uses the term “exit strategy†I’m going to be tempted to ram that stupid term so far down his throat that his grandchildren will have it imprinted on their foreheads.
And the “neo-con†delusions… mind defining them?
Francis Fukuyama : “He argued that Bush overlooked the need for international support to build a sense of “legitimacy” for the Iraq invasion, antagonized many by announcing a
pre-emption strategy, and “went into Iraq with enormous illusions about how easy the postwar situation would be.”
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/041025/usnews/25neocons.htm
As for whether or not removing a dictator when our national interests and the interests of an oppressed people converge is “principled,â€Â
According to Paul “no history of ethnic strife” Wolfowitz, that was not a sufficient reason to invade.
Wonderful quotes Steve. Would you mind putting your entire collection into single post? It would save us all a lot of time.
Mind doing it on your own blog?
Just for you money:
Didn’t use the word ____
W’s “failure” at the UN presupposes that only winning and losing were possible outcomes. My understanding is that a minority position in the Bush WH was that further appeals to the UN would be counter productive but their position lost out to the need of overseas allies (principally Blair) to be seen to have done everything possible diplomatically before they could join the effort. If so,British participation in the coalition was enabled by what was known and feared to be a probable “failure” at the UN. So was that a win or a loss?
Bill
MONEY –
I try to please. Here’s another goodie:
CHENEY WAS CORRECTNot in the last 5 years, however. (Via Baghdad Dweller)
The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad and somehow take control of the country strikes me as an extremely serious one in terms of what we’d have to do once we got there. You’d probably have to put some new government in place. It’s not clear what kind of government that would be, how long you’d have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of the struggle over who’s going to govern in Iraq strikes me as a classic definition of a quagmire.
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney speaking on NPR in 1991
Yeah, I posted on Fukuyama, too, Steve. But isn’t Fukuyama there pointing out failures (as he sees them) from a neo-con perpective, not the delusions of the neocon agenda?
Howsabout doing a site search if you’re unsure the material you pretend is revelatory hasn’t already been covered.
And re: Wolfowitz, I posited a two-pronged reason. Our national interest would be enough. Add to that the bonus of removing a dictator and freeing 25 million to vote, maybe even ol’ Volfy would go for it.
American citizens talking overseas to al Qaeda, you mean—w/ one end overseas? Really, you need to click the links. Right now, you’re just spamming my comments with things that have already been covered time and time again as if it’s new to us.
And that irritates me.
Fred —
The “exit strategy” for Iraq has been explained over and over again. That you refuse to hear it is not the fault of those of us who have.
Simply denying it exists doesn’t make it so. Stop wasting our time and my bandwidth repeating it.
Thanks so much.
I doubt you’ll find many people here who would disagree that one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush I presidency was the failure to finish what he started in Iraq.
Assuming Delay was speaking of Bosnia perhaps you could define our vital national interest there?
No reference to exit strategy, right? I’m sure you could find some – or even many – on the right who have used the term. When they did so it was as irredeemably stupid as when those on the Left use it.
It is a nonsense term unless the user assumes defeat. Exits are made by the loser, not the victor. Unless we are driven out of Iraq we will have a military presence there for decades.
And to all a good night. Now where is that girl in the flowered dress?
Beetroot-
We aren’t talking “in principle”. Do you believe that Russia, France, and others were actually operating in bad faith prior to the Iraq War? If not, how do you square the UN Oil-for-Food scandal?
so, the Democrats would have given Bush a free pass on bribing other nations to go to war?
Hard unless you are willing to bribe, then it’s “consensus building”…
and by the way, should it be hard to get nations to agree to invade, say Sudan? An invasion of present Sudan would meet all the risks above.
So your anger regarding the President is that he didn’t take ample precautions to insulate himself from political blowback prior to the invasion?
in short, if we are going to invade, let’s make sure we make all the mistakes of empire that got the middle east into this mess in the first place. Let’s sell off the oil reserves to France and Russia (although we could have gotten a higher price from China…but really we might as well just give them unchallenged access to Iran), and hand over sections of the Shia east to Iran- that ought to keep them from getting all troublesome. Heck, let’s also toss the Sunni triangle to the Saudis- might as well counter balance what we have to Iran there. The Kurds? well, nobody likes them…so messy with their want of an independent Kurdistan. Maybe we can just create a humanitarian crisis while we’re there…nip that whole experiment in the bud.
Jeff, you should be honored by the presence of Steve J and Fred. They are speaking truth to you…you know what that makes you?
POWER
So are we using Yugoslavia as an example of a *good* exit strategy now? A trial well run, accountability well met? Perpetrators tracked down? Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic have been running around for 11 years now as free men. NATO and US Troops are still in country. Serbia/Montenegro is still threatening to splinter along ethnic lines.
So perhaps Santorum was right about Yugoslavia not having an exit strategy, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a supportable decsion.
Is that the point you are trying to make?
What I love is that since things aren’t going exactly according to plan, that means we’re defeated, it’s time to quit, pack up and go home. ‘But what about Will, and Buckley, and Fukuyama?’ Easy – they’re wrong. This battle of the war is difficult and long, and they’ve given up. It’s the same ‘mistake’* so many others are making; because mistakes have been made, because it’s hard, because we’re up against a savvy enemy, we should quit. That means handing our enemies a huge victory. This is what you’re arguing for. No amount of shoulda-coulda-woulda, no amount of second-guessing pre-war planning changes that. The war is on Right. Fucking. Now. You are either for us to win, or to lose. There is no other option. You don’t get to play ‘third way’ on this. Either we stick it out until Iraq is stable enough to remove most of our forces, or we pack up and hand it over to the Islamists and their allies – and you see a real Iraqi civil war. The entire idea that our pulling out before Iraq is stable would not be played by our mortal enemies as ignominous defeat is ignoring how they’ve behaved consistently, for decades.
This new phase of the war is only 5 years old. It’s a change from how it’s been actively waged for the past 50 years or so. The war itself is hundreds of years old. It’s older than the USA. Because Iraq is not stable in three years is hardly a sign of defeat.
*Why the scare quotes around mistake? Because for most, it’s not a mistake. It’s a deliberate decision, knowing what the outcome will be. It’s a wish for the defeat of the US – at the very least, in this battle.
Because the left cares so much about this country, and the Iraqi’s, they have offered us 2 alternatives for how to get out of the quagmire.
1) Run away – which, frankly, sucks if you happen to live in Iraq, because not only does the situation get worse, your hope vanishes. This one really seems like a non-starter to me.
2) Impeach the bastard – but like the chessmaster that the aren’t this will get us Cheney in the office and a new republican in the VP. Which will require impeaching Cheney, etc., etc. This also seems like a dead end.
So, oh callers of doom, since I don’t want to force you into a false dicohtomy, tell me what another plan is that doesn’t require a time machine. Also, please note that ‘put us in power and then we will tell you our plan’ isn’t much of a plan either.
I know Bush’s plan. So what’s yours?
It’s the same ‘mistake’* so many others are making; because mistakes have been made, because it’s hard, because we’re up against a savvy enemy, we should quit.
I think the real mistake is the incompetent civilian leadership and the 4-star whores.
Howsabout doing a site search if you’re unsure the material you pretend is revelatory hasn’t already been covered.
Fair enough.
An interesting thing to consider, Maybee, is how the ongoing situation in Yugoslavia relates to the idea presented by some on the left (I invoke the evil strawman, perhaps? I can only claim to have seen the following from bloggers and blog commentors…and most of them didn’t even have book deals)- that the sucessful way to deal with Iraq was to split it into 3 countries after evicting Saddam. The situation would have been much easier to deal with if only we drew an imaginary line between the Sunni Triangle, Kurdistan, and South-Eastern Iraq…right?
The war is on Right. Fucking. Now. You are either for us to win, or to lose.
We lost the Iraq War in the summer of ‘03. The issue now is how do we stop the bleeding. There is no reason to believe in Pres. Fredo’s “plan.”
Because the left cares so much about this country, and the Iraqi’s, they have offered us 2 alternatives for how to get out of the quagmire.
1) Run away
Murtha’s plan is NOT “run away.” He realizes that we have to let the Iraqis settle their internal affairs and that our military presence is now part of the problem. Even some generals agree with the latter point.
A couple of complementary 3rd Anniversary posts at Can’t See the Center because, well, I cain’t git no … traffication … anywhere else.
Steve J. at 11:34
Steve J at 11:37
It’s amazing the difference 3 minutes can make in terms of the status of a war we lost.
All I want to know is does Marcotte’s book come with crayons or will I need to borrow the neighbor kids?
Exactly how, pray tell? This is hardly ‘67 or ‘73, where it can be over in days, or Gulf 1 or the Falklands, where it can be over in months.
Again, by turning mistakes made into unsalvageable failure simply by calling them so (tail v. leg applies here), you’re arguing for defeat. Thanks for the clarification.
um, I think that’s called kidnapping…
Exactly how, pray tell? This is hardly ‘67 or ‘73, where it can be over in days, or Gulf 1 or the Falklands, where it can be over in months.
We didn’t have enough troops to put down the insurgency.
Well what do you know! Steve J finally takes and actual position and it appears to be buns up and dealin’. Don’t hurt him, fellows.
I believe Noah was asking by what criteria are you judging a loss? What goals have been forever removed from the realm of possibility since that date? What objectives were achieved by the insurgency such that they “won”?
Of that, I have no doubt, never have.
Good shit, as usual, Jeff.
What goals have been forever removed from the realm of possibility since that date?
For one, the goal of having a stable, democratic Iraq by September 2003.
Steve J,
Lemme clue you in on something here partner..A “stable” Iraq is not the finish line. An Iraq without Sdaam in charge was. And we crossed that already. I will quote at length from PJ O’Rourke to help esplain it a little bit better for you..
You say that we won the war, but we’re losing the peace because Iraq is so unstable. When Iraq was stable, it attacked Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars. It attacked Iran. It attacked Kuwait. It gassed the Kurds. It butchered the Shiites. It fostered terrorism in the Middle East. Who wants a stable Iraq?
No, it turns out Saddam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. And how crazy does that make Saddam? All he had to do was tell Hans Blix, “Look anywhere you want. Look under the bed. Look beneath the couch. Look behind the toilet tank in the third presidential palace on the left, but keep your mitts off my copies of Maxim.” And Saddam could have gone on dictatoring away until Donald Rumsfeld gets elected head of the World Council of Churches. But no . . .
You say I didn’t have the answers in Iraq? Well, what were the questions? Was there this bad man? Was he running a bad country? That did bad things? Did it have a lot of oil money to do bad things with? Was it going to do more bad things? If those were the questions, was the answer “more time to let international sanctions and U.N. weapons inspections do their job”? No, the answer was blow the place to bits.
You say I didn’t have a plan for the post-war problem of Iraq? I say we blew the place to bits–what’s the problem?
Yes, blowing a place to bits leaves a mess behind. But it’s a mess without a military to fight aggressive wars. A mess without the facilities to develop dangerous weapons. A mess that can’t systematically kill, torture, and oppress millions of its own citizens. It’s a mess with a message–don’t mess with us!
Saddam Hussein was reduced to the Unabomber–Ted Kaczynski–a nutcase hiding in the sticks. Sure, the terrorism by his supporters is frightening. Hence, its name, “terrorism.” Killing innocent people by surprise is not called “a thousand points of light.” But, as frightening as terrorism is, it’s the weapon of losers. The minute somebody sets off a suicide bomb, you can be sure that person doesn’t have “career prospects.” And no matter how horrendous a terrorist attack is, it’s still conducted by losers. Winners don’t need to hijack airplanes. Winners have an Air Force.
beetroot, the Administration would have been better served by pressing their “Easy” button. Iraq would be Christian by now and the oil would be pumping itself.
Why they didn’t do it will be a question for the ages.
Tman, that’s beautiful. I’m getting all misty over here.
Funny, but I don’t remember that goal.
The war, if you insist on considering Iraq a war of it’s own, was won when we eliminated the Iraqi regime and it’s capability to fight. We did that in a month. There wasn’t an insurgency to go to be at war with, so we couldn’t possibly have lost to one.
Oh, and if we lost, who the hell won? How can you tell?
moneyrunner asked SteveJ:
…but, if he posted it on his blog, then no one would read it!
(Which, methinks partially explains why all the trolls come screeching into the comments of blogs like these…)
This is what I find humorously ironic about the whole situation. The one thing I liked about the progressive left in the 80s and 90s is they actually had idealism. Although their solutions were completely impractical in the real world, they actually seemed to care about the lives of those who suffered as collateral damage of US foreign policy. (Of course, they didn’t seem as caring of those who suffered from the actions of Soviet or French foreign policy, but I digress). And now that we actually seem to be starting to do something to help those suffering under tyranny, they tell us “well, I didn’t mean you should do that…”
Of the plans for doing something to protect the national interest in the short and long term and help some of those suffering under tyrannical regimes, I like the neo-conservative plan the best. Its not up to the neocons to come up with more plans, <object to come up with a better plan</b>.
Sorry, that last paragraph should read:
Of the plans for doing something to protect the national interest in the short and long term and help some of those suffering under tyrannical regimes, I like the neo-conservative plan the best. Its not up to the neocons to come up with more plans, <object to come up with a better plan</b>
Sadly the idealism quickly became just a marginally legal, morally cancerous vote buying racket. How often do you sense the unspoken but that money should be getting spent on me running through d’Emocrat’s words? I think that is truly the primary reason for the opposition to the war, it may be financed with primarily red-state tax dollars, but the blue-states consider the money rightfully theirs. It is supremely ironic to me to hear government dependants bitch about Halliburton’s greed.
One last try…
Of the plans for doing something to protect the national interest in the short and long term and help some of those suffering under tyrannical regimes, I like the neo-conservative plan the best. Its not up to the neocons to come up with more plans, it’s up to those who object to come up with a better plan.
What happened to the people who believed “we shall bear any burden, pay any price”, they were beaten viciously to death by Noam Chomsky’s hate-America baseball bat.
Has it ever occurred to the anti-war brigade that when they protest against Liberation they are protesting against Liberalism since it was the spread of Liberalism which inspired the very cause the anti-war crowds abhor; the imperialistic and hegemonic American ideal called Freedom.
Hopefully someday soon the Democrat Party will awaken to the fact that their cherished belief in Liberalism is being eaten alive by totalitarian Collectivism.
Jeff,
The Marcotte book announcement link was to an old Erma Bombeck book. Because, lord knows that Erma Bombeck did more for feminism than Amanda&Co. ever will. So, at the moment, all is right with the universe.
Books trump blogs, but video trumps books. You might want to skip right past getting a book deal and go for some sort of animated short films to spread your message.
.
Ah, I see. So, since (by your assertion, for the sake of arguement) we didn’t do it right then, we should pack up and leave. By this logic, the ACW was lost at First Bull Run, WW2 at Kasserine, the defeat of Task Force Smith signalled the end of the Korean War, and Tet was the final battle of Vietnam. A setback is not defeat.
Oh, my goodness. We didn’t meet an optimistic goal! The enemy turned out to be tougher and more vile than we thought! The war is lost! Stop the bleeding!